I'm not sure how many nerds actually RTFM, versus just having the ability to figure it out and/or search online for specific questions.
When I was a kid, and my father got a new piece of software, he definitely would RTFM. Cover-to-cover. Then he'd buy some 3rd party book on the same piece of software, and read that cover-to-cover. He'd then somehow be less able to use said software than I was, armed only with the intuition of someone with computer fluency.
These used to be quite common on the Model S, mostly prior to 2015. However, most of the ones I've seen since just have ordinary random license plates. Now that the Model 3 has novelty, I wonder how long the fad will last for there.
Tons of recruiters are constantly trying to contact me via LinkedIn. Its basically the primary tool they use. (Of course I also only actually accept invites from people I at least vaguely know.)
Of course this only started the moment I moved to Silicon Valley. Before that, they basically ignored me. I'm guessing the author doesn't live in Silicon Valley.
P.S. A co-worker once told me that before he moved out here, his friends would fake an SV address on their profiles just to get noticed. They'd then deal with the reality afterwards, but it worked for them.
While that might be true, in extreme cases, I often feel like they're not even trying.
Before I lived in Silicon Valley, I was basically invisible to tech companies. Their recruiters didn't even acknowledge that I existed, and I never felt like I had many job opportunities. It was rare that I'd even get a response to a resume send-out.
The moment I moved to Silicon Valley, updating my address, the barrage began. Recruiters started constantly trying to get in touch with me, and its never let up. The simple fact that I'm already living here makes me 10x more desirable to them.
At this point, I think the main thing protecting everyone is the sheer incompetence and disorganization of his entire administration. Its clear now that he's far more interested Tweeting and continuing to hold those campaign rallies than in actually doing the job of President.
When he got elected, I said that this would be the truest test of checks and balances to date, but I never imagined he would be checked and balanced by his own staff. This is really turning out to be far more entertaining than I ever would have imagined.
Indeed, it has been. Its times like this that I'm grateful that the president actually isn't as powerful as all his supporters expect him to be. This episode may also lead to congress reigning in all those executive powers they openly dolled out during times that they liked the president.
Trump's campaign rhetoric really scared the crap out of many people. And not in a "OMG, Republicans nonsense!" way. In a "Are we going to start having to hide Muslim families in our basements?" way.
At this point, I think the main thing protecting everyone is the sheer incompetence and disorganization of his entire administration. Its clear now that he's far more interested Tweeting and continuing to hold those campaign rallies than in actually doing the job of President.
Yeah, because while you can easily change the terminology used in your little group... You cannot easily change the standard terminology of an entire industry. So the terms used for these things won't actually change. M/F will still be printed on the packaging, spec sheets, order forms, vendor catalogs, store shelves, etc... You'll just need to constantly switch back and forth when going in and out of your circle.
FWIW, the suggested terms I saw in the discussion I referred to above were far more "folksy." (can't remember exactly what they were) At least "plug" and "socket" sound like they could be viable official terms. (Well, until you have a "female" plug going into a "male" socket, which does happen all the time. You know, like on the device-side of that standard IEC cable you use to plug in many electronic devices.)
This actually reminds me of another heated discussion I saw in some private group (wasn't a part of that group, just looking over someone's shoulder). It was a bunch of (I think theater) people thinking that using the terms "male" and "female" for cord connectors was offensive, and they should all agree on some set of alternative terms. As if somehow these terms were changeable casual slang within their little community, and not actually standard technical terminology of the entire connector industry.
I grew up in the Bay Area. I left about 10 years ago for flyover country. I now live in a place that is constantly trying to woo tech companies with low taxes, cheap labor, cheap houses, etc.
I hear about these places a lot. I wonder how many of them actually acknowledge what I consider to be the two most important factors in keeping SV attractive:
- Critical mass of big *and* small employers ensuring that you have opportunity beyond the job that you originally moved there for. - Lack of non-compete agreements ensuring mobility amongst said jobs.
(okay, there's also the bit about VC presence, which feeds into the first point)
My whole life (and I'm in my 40s) California was a "Liberal Cesspool of Business-Hating Over-Regulation, one step away from a spectacular collapse". And yet, here we are, doing better than ever.
Before I moved to Silicon Valley, I'd constantly hear variations on this from my (often conservative) friends. That, and the usual comments about it being way too expensive. Well, after moving here, I simply don't see how these complaints have actually led to any sort of collapse.
Tech jobs pay *way* more than anywhere else in the country, practically putting engineers on-par with what you'd need to be a doctor or lawyer to get elsewhere. There are also a lot more opportunities. Before I lived here, I felt like I was basically invisible to job opportunities. All the usual complaints about no one giving me the time of day, not meeting the 20 specific buzzwords in whatever job openings I could find, etc. After moving here, and to this day, recruiters have been trying to get my attention practically non-stop.
Sure, housing costs are beyond ridiculous. I won't argue that point. But if you can make it work, there's a lot more opportunity.
There was a very small window of time where computers were so expensive that a family could only afford one and where there was the internet.
Remember, however, that "could only afford one" and "doesn't see it as important enough to justify owning more than one" are both factors at play here. This is especially true when none of the adults are really computer literate, and sometimes brag about this.
When I look at what people gladly pay for certain consumer electronics devices today (especially smartphones), I think back to when I was growing up... Back then, the same prices would have *never* been considered a justifiable expense in the same way.
Seriously, they should stop chasing distractions like this and fix the damn media player in the car. Its quirky and buggy to the extent that its a constant frustration, and the v8 "major overhaul" just introduced regressions alongside a coat of UI polish.
Of course that won't make for flashy press releases, or news attractive to people who casually browse headlines. You have to actually own the car, and drive it regularly, for any of this to benefit you.
But to make use of said Cisco gear, with updated software, you need a support contract. You know, that thing where your business relations person talks to their sales rep and irons out a deal where you give them a barrel of money in exchange for access to some website.
This is why Cisco equipment is difficult to support outside of an official corporate IT environment. So when I was doing my last round of network upgrades, I went with someone else... Not because I couldn't afford Cisco gear, but because I didn't have the bureaucracy to get software updates for it.
Plus the arm twisting agreements where an OEM cannot make a Google Services Android phone and also make an open source or alternate firmware Android phone. Geee, that reminds me of Microsoft not allowing OEMs to sell their PCs with any other OS on them in the 1980's even if there was market demand at that time.
This part irritates me far more than any conventional bundling they may be doing. It basically says that, if you want to build an alternative smartphone platform, you have to be both phone manufacturer and OS developer. This is an extremely high barrier.
Remember folks, everything done via "the web" on regular computers is done via "platform-specific apps" (that will *never* give a damn about your non-Android/iOS platform) on mobile. So no, you really cannot make a viable competing platform unless you can run software written for a mainstream platform... which you can't usefully do, if the phone manufacturer has to follow Google's rules.
But I can work with Google use their tools to create and sell products that isn't in Google scope
I think this is another big part of it. So many startups are basically using tools the "big boys" provide to build their own business off of. They basically exist as a side-effect of something the big boys are doing. So of course they won't fight them. They live and die at their mercy.
I remember going to some event at a startup accelerator facility a few years ago. Near the entrance, they had a huge wall full of all their success stories. Nearly every startup on that wall was exited by being bought out by someone. Only a very small handful went IPO.
By contrast, it seemed like during the dot-com boom everyone's goal was to go IPO. Of course that didn't work out so well, though perhaps for different reasons. (not having a good business model, needing too much capital too early for business infrastructure, etc.)
The small guys haven't been able to compete in the ISP market since the 90's, back when we were all on dial-up and "the phone lines" didn't have to be provided by the same company as "the Internet service".
Ever since the advent of broadband, this separation has not usefully existed. We now have to get our service from the same companies that run wires to our houses, which tend to be gov't regulated/mandated monopolies.
And mobile software is especially wasteful in a few ways, that could be solved by a platform vendor, but apparently none are sufficiently motivated to do so.
First, all substantial mobile apps need to drag along their own copies of large support libraries. (because "shared libraries" are so passe, and no one has built a sufficient infrastructure for distributing them independent from apps) Second, all substantial mobile apps bundle a significant quantity of graphic assets, because that's how you make a good looking modern mobile UI. Third, all substantial mobile apps need to do both of these in such a way as to support every device and OS combination that may have been sold in the past 5+ years. (I understand some platform vendors are now sharding assets in their app stores, in an effort to help with some of this.)
English is the odd one out here. Almost all the languages in the world have gender nouns.
This is why I get pissed when I see people ranting and raving against what few gendered terms might exist in English discourse. They should be lucky to speak a language that actually has gender-neutral nouns and pronouns.
Just imagine if these people learned about other languages.
You're allowed to include Universal Studios or Seaworld in your Orlando vacation, if Disney World doesn't have something you want. Heck, you can even venture out a bit further and go to any 3rd rate attraction you like. The Disney corporation doesn't make you sign a form as you step off the gate at Orlando International Airport where you agree to only include Disney-approved properties in your vacation plans.
There's a pretty good chance a restrictive platform vendor would exclude an application simply because it doesn't mesh well with their business interests, or because it competes with one of their product offerings. So stop trying to limit it to "malware" and "content some find objectionable" (but others may not).
As these new mobile platforms start to take over from "general purpose computers", people need to stop giving them a free pass on implementing any arbitrary limitations the platform vendor so feels like... Because "mobile."
Because it limits app distribution to only those apps the platform vendor approves of. They can and do disprove of apps for reasons other than "its malware."
IMHO, providing an app store isn't a bad thing in and of itself. However, enforcing that all apps shall *only* be distributed via the platform vendor's app store is.
Add your organization (home) certificate signer to your root CA store.
I was under the impression that smartphone and smartphone-derived tablet operating systems made it difficult and/or annoying to add a root CA. How would you get the CA's root certificate onto a device in the first place if it can't read a flash drive? In addition, which graphical frontend to OpenSSL would less-technical users be using to operate this root CA, such as to issue a certificate before uploading it to the router or printer?
This is exactly what I did, and no I would not expect a less technical user to be able to do the same.
And yes, its a pain to make this work with smartphone-type devices. While I can actually load the certs, the OS tends to throw up "your connection may be monitored" warnings when I do. Its also a process sufficiently involved that its not going to be done on every device, and I wouldn't expect a less technical user to figure out this part either.
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I'm not sure how many nerds actually RTFM, versus just having the ability to figure it out and/or search online for specific questions.
When I was a kid, and my father got a new piece of software, he definitely would RTFM. Cover-to-cover. Then he'd buy some 3rd party book on the same piece of software, and read that cover-to-cover. He'd then somehow be less able to use said software than I was, armed only with the intuition of someone with computer fluency.
These used to be quite common on the Model S, mostly prior to 2015. However, most of the ones I've seen since just have ordinary random license plates. Now that the Model 3 has novelty, I wonder how long the fad will last for there.
- Everyone on there just "vouches" for each other like some sort of bizarre prisoners dilemma.
I couldn't help but think of their "endorsements" when you said this. Thankfully they're not pushing it anymore.
(I mean seriously... When someone who's never seen a line of code in their life endorses you for SVN, that's gotta mean something about the platform.)
Tons of recruiters are constantly trying to contact me via LinkedIn. Its basically the primary tool they use. (Of course I also only actually accept invites from people I at least vaguely know.)
Of course this only started the moment I moved to Silicon Valley. Before that, they basically ignored me. I'm guessing the author doesn't live in Silicon Valley.
P.S. A co-worker once told me that before he moved out here, his friends would fake an SV address on their profiles just to get noticed. They'd then deal with the reality afterwards, but it worked for them.
While that might be true, in extreme cases, I often feel like they're not even trying.
Before I lived in Silicon Valley, I was basically invisible to tech companies. Their recruiters didn't even acknowledge that I existed, and I never felt like I had many job opportunities. It was rare that I'd even get a response to a resume send-out.
The moment I moved to Silicon Valley, updating my address, the barrage began. Recruiters started constantly trying to get in touch with me, and its never let up. The simple fact that I'm already living here makes me 10x more desirable to them.
When he got elected, I said that this would be the truest test of checks and balances to date, but I never imagined he would be checked and balanced by his own staff. This is really turning out to be far more entertaining than I ever would have imagined.
Indeed, it has been. Its times like this that I'm grateful that the president actually isn't as powerful as all his supporters expect him to be. This episode may also lead to congress reigning in all those executive powers they openly dolled out during times that they liked the president.
Trump's campaign rhetoric really scared the crap out of many people. And not in a "OMG, Republicans nonsense!" way. In a "Are we going to start having to hide Muslim families in our basements?" way.
At this point, I think the main thing protecting everyone is the sheer incompetence and disorganization of his entire administration. Its clear now that he's far more interested Tweeting and continuing to hold those campaign rallies than in actually doing the job of President.
Yeah, because while you can easily change the terminology used in your little group... You cannot easily change the standard terminology of an entire industry. So the terms used for these things won't actually change. M/F will still be printed on the packaging, spec sheets, order forms, vendor catalogs, store shelves, etc...
You'll just need to constantly switch back and forth when going in and out of your circle.
FWIW, the suggested terms I saw in the discussion I referred to above were far more "folksy." (can't remember exactly what they were)
At least "plug" and "socket" sound like they could be viable official terms. (Well, until you have a "female" plug going into a "male" socket, which does happen all the time. You know, like on the device-side of that standard IEC cable you use to plug in many electronic devices.)
This actually reminds me of another heated discussion I saw in some private group (wasn't a part of that group, just looking over someone's shoulder). It was a bunch of (I think theater) people thinking that using the terms "male" and "female" for cord connectors was offensive, and they should all agree on some set of alternative terms. As if somehow these terms were changeable casual slang within their little community, and not actually standard technical terminology of the entire connector industry.
I grew up in the Bay Area. I left about 10 years ago for flyover country. I now live in a place that is constantly trying to woo tech companies with low taxes, cheap labor, cheap houses, etc.
I hear about these places a lot. I wonder how many of them actually acknowledge what I consider to be the two most important factors in keeping SV attractive:
- Critical mass of big *and* small employers ensuring that you have opportunity beyond the job that you originally moved there for.
- Lack of non-compete agreements ensuring mobility amongst said jobs.
(okay, there's also the bit about VC presence, which feeds into the first point)
My whole life (and I'm in my 40s) California was a "Liberal Cesspool of Business-Hating Over-Regulation, one step away from a spectacular collapse". And yet, here we are, doing better than ever.
Before I moved to Silicon Valley, I'd constantly hear variations on this from my (often conservative) friends. That, and the usual comments about it being way too expensive. Well, after moving here, I simply don't see how these complaints have actually led to any sort of collapse.
Tech jobs pay *way* more than anywhere else in the country, practically putting engineers on-par with what you'd need to be a doctor or lawyer to get elsewhere. There are also a lot more opportunities. Before I lived here, I felt like I was basically invisible to job opportunities. All the usual complaints about no one giving me the time of day, not meeting the 20 specific buzzwords in whatever job openings I could find, etc. After moving here, and to this day, recruiters have been trying to get my attention practically non-stop.
Sure, housing costs are beyond ridiculous. I won't argue that point. But if you can make it work, there's a lot more opportunity.
There was a very small window of time where computers were so expensive that a family could only afford one and where there was the internet.
Remember, however, that "could only afford one" and "doesn't see it as important enough to justify owning more than one" are both factors at play here. This is especially true when none of the adults are really computer literate, and sometimes brag about this.
When I look at what people gladly pay for certain consumer electronics devices today (especially smartphones), I think back to when I was growing up... Back then, the same prices would have *never* been considered a justifiable expense in the same way.
Seriously, they should stop chasing distractions like this and fix the damn media player in the car. Its quirky and buggy to the extent that its a constant frustration, and the v8 "major overhaul" just introduced regressions alongside a coat of UI polish.
Of course that won't make for flashy press releases, or news attractive to people who casually browse headlines. You have to actually own the car, and drive it regularly, for any of this to benefit you.
But to make use of said Cisco gear, with updated software, you need a support contract. You know, that thing where your business relations person talks to their sales rep and irons out a deal where you give them a barrel of money in exchange for access to some website.
This is why Cisco equipment is difficult to support outside of an official corporate IT environment. So when I was doing my last round of network upgrades, I went with someone else... Not because I couldn't afford Cisco gear, but because I didn't have the bureaucracy to get software updates for it.
Plus the arm twisting agreements where an OEM cannot make a Google Services Android phone and also make an open source or alternate firmware Android phone. Geee, that reminds me of Microsoft not allowing OEMs to sell their PCs with any other OS on them in the 1980's even if there was market demand at that time.
This part irritates me far more than any conventional bundling they may be doing. It basically says that, if you want to build an alternative smartphone platform, you have to be both phone manufacturer and OS developer. This is an extremely high barrier.
Remember folks, everything done via "the web" on regular computers is done via "platform-specific apps" (that will *never* give a damn about your non-Android/iOS platform) on mobile. So no, you really cannot make a viable competing platform unless you can run software written for a mainstream platform... which you can't usefully do, if the phone manufacturer has to follow Google's rules.
During the dot-com boom it definitely felt like 25% plan A, and 75% plan C. :-)
But I can work with Google use their tools to create and sell products that isn't in Google scope
I think this is another big part of it. So many startups are basically using tools the "big boys" provide to build their own business off of. They basically exist as a side-effect of something the big boys are doing. So of course they won't fight them. They live and die at their mercy.
I remember going to some event at a startup accelerator facility a few years ago. Near the entrance, they had a huge wall full of all their success stories. Nearly every startup on that wall was exited by being bought out by someone. Only a very small handful went IPO.
By contrast, it seemed like during the dot-com boom everyone's goal was to go IPO. Of course that didn't work out so well, though perhaps for different reasons. (not having a good business model, needing too much capital too early for business infrastructure, etc.)
The small guys haven't been able to compete in the ISP market since the 90's, back when we were all on dial-up and "the phone lines" didn't have to be provided by the same company as "the Internet service".
Ever since the advent of broadband, this separation has not usefully existed. We now have to get our service from the same companies that run wires to our houses, which tend to be gov't regulated/mandated monopolies.
Modern software is incredibly wasteful
And mobile software is especially wasteful in a few ways, that could be solved by a platform vendor, but apparently none are sufficiently motivated to do so.
First, all substantial mobile apps need to drag along their own copies of large support libraries. (because "shared libraries" are so passe, and no one has built a sufficient infrastructure for distributing them independent from apps)
Second, all substantial mobile apps bundle a significant quantity of graphic assets, because that's how you make a good looking modern mobile UI.
Third, all substantial mobile apps need to do both of these in such a way as to support every device and OS combination that may have been sold in the past 5+ years. (I understand some platform vendors are now sharding assets in their app stores, in an effort to help with some of this.)
English is the odd one out here. Almost all the languages in the world have gender nouns.
This is why I get pissed when I see people ranting and raving against what few gendered terms might exist in English discourse. They should be lucky to speak a language that actually has gender-neutral nouns and pronouns.
Just imagine if these people learned about other languages.
Yet somehow dual-SIM capabilities is only a common feature in low-end phones designed for 3rd world markets.
You're allowed to include Universal Studios or Seaworld in your Orlando vacation, if Disney World doesn't have something you want. Heck, you can even venture out a bit further and go to any 3rd rate attraction you like. The Disney corporation doesn't make you sign a form as you step off the gate at Orlando International Airport where you agree to only include Disney-approved properties in your vacation plans.
There's a pretty good chance a restrictive platform vendor would exclude an application simply because it doesn't mesh well with their business interests, or because it competes with one of their product offerings. So stop trying to limit it to "malware" and "content some find objectionable" (but others may not).
As these new mobile platforms start to take over from "general purpose computers", people need to stop giving them a free pass on implementing any arbitrary limitations the platform vendor so feels like... Because "mobile."
Because it limits app distribution to only those apps the platform vendor approves of. They can and do disprove of apps for reasons other than "its malware."
IMHO, providing an app store isn't a bad thing in and of itself. However, enforcing that all apps shall *only* be distributed via the platform vendor's app store is.
Add your organization (home) certificate signer to your root CA store.
I was under the impression that smartphone and smartphone-derived tablet operating systems made it difficult and/or annoying to add a root CA. How would you get the CA's root certificate onto a device in the first place if it can't read a flash drive? In addition, which graphical frontend to OpenSSL would less-technical users be using to operate this root CA, such as to issue a certificate before uploading it to the router or printer?
This is exactly what I did, and no I would not expect a less technical user to be able to do the same.
And yes, its a pain to make this work with smartphone-type devices. While I can actually load the certs, the OS tends to throw up "your connection may be monitored" warnings when I do. Its also a process sufficiently involved that its not going to be done on every device, and I wouldn't expect a less technical user to figure out this part either.